Beinbrink v. Fox

Constable, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The bill in this cause was filed by Barbara E. Beinbrink June 5th, 1906, against Mary E. Fox, her daughter, for the purpose of having set aside a deed for a tract of farm land in Frederick county made September 3rd, 1903, by the complainant to her daughter. The bill alleges that when the complainant was about seventy-six years of age, and physically and mentally weak, she was induced by fraud and undue influence, practised upop her by her daughter, to convey all of her real property; that although the deed recites that a consideration of twenty-nine hundred dollars passed, in fact the consideration named was false and that none whatever passed. During the' taking of testimony before the examiner, and after the complainant had testified, she died, and George H. Beinbrink, the husband of the complainant, and Fannie E. Schultz, her only other child and half sister to the defendant, were substituted as parties plaintiff, they being the sole devisees and legatees under the last will and testament of Barbara E. Beinbrink, executed June, 1907. ¹⁰⁴ The Court helow passed an order dismissing the bill, and from that order this appeal was taken.

It is firmly established as the law of this State, that where an aged parent makes a conveyance to' a child, the burden is cast upon the grantee of establishing the fairness of the transaction. And if where confidence is reposed it is abused, Courts of equity will grant relief. Highberger v. Stiffler, 21 Md. 352 ; Todd v. Grove, 33 Md. 188 ; Whitridge v. Whit ridge, 76 Md. 54 ; Zimmerman v. Bitner, 79 Md. 115 ; Berger v. Bullock, 85 Md. 441 ; Reck v. Reck, 110 Md. 497 . There is no contention that, at the time of the execution of the deed, Mrs. Beinbrink was mentally incapable of making a valid contract, and her mentality, is not questioned except in so far as the exercise of the alleged undue influence might be said to question it.

Therefore the only questions involved concern undue influence by the daughter over the aged mother, and the consideration named in the deed. After a careful reading and study of all the testimony in the record we have reached the conclusion that there is no evidence of any undue influence attributable to the actions of the appellee, and that the consideration named in the deed is a valid one. Mrs. Beinbrink and George H. Beinbrink, her husband, lived on the land in question, several miles out of Frederick. Mrs. Fox, with her children, lived in Frederick, and Mrs. Schultz lived in Baltimore City.

Mr. Beinbrink was the stepfather of both Mrs. Fox and Mrs. Schultz. The father of Mrs. Fox was a previous husband of Mrs. Beinbrink, named Charles Faitz, who had died when Mrs. Fox was two years of age, and Mrs. Schultz four. Faitz was not, however, the father of Mrs. Schultz. Mr. Beinbrink did not know Mrs. Beinbrink until two years after the death of her husband, whom he did not know at all.

The deed was executed without the knowledge of Mr. Beinbrink and the first knowledge he had of it was a few days after its execution when he read of it in the county ¹⁰⁵ newspaper’s account of land title transfer's. This suit was not instituted until three years later, and it was a year later before Mrs. Beinbrink testified. She was then about eighty years of age and from a reading" of her testimony we are compelled to agree with the lower Court that no probative force can be allowed it. Erom the disconnectedness of her answers, uncertainty on material points and avowed forgetfulness there is the clearest evidence of that breaking down of mentality so often seen in persons of her age.

And we think injustice would be done if we allowed any of her testimony to influence us in the determination of this case. Mrs. Eox, the appellee, testified that she was fifty-eight years of age and was married when she was twenty and lived with her mother a while afterward. Since then she had made her home apart from her, though she visited her mother, and hor mother her, until shortly after the execution of the deed was known to her step-father who had turned her mother against her. BEer mother for years had told her that she had gotten about fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars out of her father’s estate, including sale of a house, insurance and lodge money.

BEer mother had said she wanted some time to give her eight or nine hundred dollars as her share of the property, and interest from the time of her father’s death. “She always wanted to make me a deed for what she possessed, and I was always opposed to it, and when she would worry over it I would say just give me some writing to show what you owe me, and if you have anything left when you come to die I am satisfied to take what is left, if it is only half of what you owe me. I never asked her to make me a deed.” The first time she mentioned making a deed to her was about fifteen years ago. On the day of the execution of the deed her mother came to her house in Frederick and asked her to go to the office of Frank L. Stoner, a member of the bar who had prepared the deed. She was present at its execution and “heard Mr. Stoner ask her whether she understood now what she was ¹⁰⁶ doing, and he wanted to know if she understood him aright.

He said to mother, do you understand, I understood that I was to write this deed for the amount of money that you had me to add up in your will that you owed your daughter, and I heard her when she said to Mr. Stoner, that is right and that is what I wanted her to have the deed for, for the amount of money I owed her from her father. * * * He explained everything to her just as plain as he could, and she understood it all, at least, she said she did.” That she had arranged with her mother that she should “live on and get her living” off the farm for the balance of her life, and that she had never attempted to disturb her after the execution of the deed. The testimony of Mrs. Elizabeth Speck corroborates Mrs. Eox as to the intention of Mrs. Beinbrink to make a deed to Mrs. Eox. She testified that she was a friend of Mrs. Beinbrink and about twelve years before, Mrs. Beinbrink had told her “That this money belonged to Mr. Eaitz, the father of Mrs. Eox, and she told me she wanted to give the home place over to her daughter, Mrs. Eox, and Mrs. Eox wouldn’t let her do it. * * * She said it was eight hundred dollars.” Ella Y. Shafer testified that Mrs. Beinbrink had on three or four occasions told her she wanted to pay Mrs. Eox the money that was due her from her father and which she had spent, and that the only way she could do it would be by deeding her the farm. That since the making of the deed she had told her once that she had often wanted Mrs. Eox to go with her and have it done, and now that it was done she was satisfied.

Mrs. Anna Boone testified: “I don’t remember how long-ago it was, but it was in the neighborhood of four or five years ago. It was in her own kitchen. I went there one morning and she (Mrs. Beinbrink) was crying, and I asked her what was the matter, and she said Mr. Beinbrink was treating her so badly. And I asked her the cause, and she ¹⁰⁷ said he had been treating her so bad since she had made this deed to Mrs. Fox.

I asked her what was the idea of her making the deed to Mrs. Fox, and she told me she had made a will, that she wasn’t satisfied because when she was gone Mr. Beinbrink and Mrs. Schultz would beat Mrs. Fox out of what was coming to her, that she had made the deed to Mrs. Fox so that she would be righted in her lifetime, that it was due her from her father. She said, too, that she did not expect Mr. Beinbrink to find out that she had made the deed, but that he did find it out and treated her bad. She said, too, she would rather die than appear against Mrs. Fox at the Court House. Mrs. Fox had been so good to her.

She told me, too, that she never would have appeared against Mrs. Fox if she had not been forced into it. She said the money coming to Mrs. Fox, interest and all, was in the neighborhood of twenty-nine hundred dollars.” She also testified that she had talked to Mrs. Beinbrink at different times about this deed and she always told her about the same thing. Mrs. Ada Knock, a daughter of the appellee, testified that practically every time Mrs. Beinbrink came to her mother’s house she would beg her mother to let her make a deed so that she would get her father’s money. Mrs. Beinbrink brought the will, in which she had left her daughter twenty-nine hundred dollars, to her house for her to read and left it in charge of her (Mrs. Knock) husband until she decided to change the provision in it by a deed.

Mrs. Mary L.- Secrist testified that in the fall of 1903 Mrs. Beinbrink had told her “she had made a will in Mrs. Fox’s favor and she thought Mr. Beinbrink and Mrs. Schultz would cheat her out of it. And she said she had made a deed of the property to Mrs. Fox and I am now satisfied Emily will get what we spent of her’s. Mr. Secrist. then asked her did she understand what she was doing when she deeded her property to Mrs. Fox, and she said, it is the way I want it.” ¹⁰⁸ William T. Secrist, in testifying as to the conversation just referred to, said: “She (Mrs. Beinbrink) was telling my wife about the trouble she had with Mr. Beinbrink and Mrs. Schultz, and the manner in which they treated her, and in that conversation she came to the will and deed. When she said she had made a deed to Mrs. Fox, I asked her, I says, Mrs. Beinbrink, do you know what you have done when you deed your property to Mrs. Fox?

She said she did. She was satisfied and that was the way she wanted it. She was afraid Mr. Beinbrink and Mrs. Schultz would cheat Mrs. Fox out of it after she was dead. She wanted Emily (Mrs. Fox) to have what was due her by her father.

In this way she knew she would get it.” - „ The appellee filed as an exhibit a will made by Mrs. Beinbrink, May 8th, 1901, in which she provided that if her husband survived her he should have such portion of her estate as the laws of Maryland allows, and provided for Mrs. Fox as follows: “Of the residue I will, devise and bequeath to my daughter, Mary E. Fox, the sum of twenty-nine hundred dollars, this sum being the amount of money with interest to this date, to which my daughter, Mary E. Fox, was entitled, from the estate of her father, Oharles Faitz, late of Baltimore City, deceased, which said sum, so due to my said daughter from said estate, was retained" by me and never paid to my said daughter. The provisions of this will